disco2000

Those reading my long posts LOL will know that this comes as no surprise to me....and long overdue....The CDC Now Advises Everyone To Wear Masks In Public.... https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/wear-mask-public-coronavirus-advisory-214838750.html

It would be a perfect temperature to be waiting in a 4 hour queue line for Orion...one of those days you could do shorts or pants and be comfortable either way...just enough of a breeze...

Interesting perspective of NFL top doc about the upcoming season...alludes to what many have already posted here about how long it will take to get back to normal...take his statements and interpolate it to an amusement park setting for example... http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000001108243/article/sills-widespread-testing-needed-for-nfl-reopening Here is the link to the article @Hawaiian Coasters 325referenced above about Cleveland Clinic where the CEO states "Our modeling predictions are telling us that if we’re able to flatten the curve to some extent, we’re expecting the peak of this disease – at least in our home-state of Ohio – to occur sometime between mid-May and mid-June, with a gradual decline of a number of cases toward mid- to late-July. This is the best case scenario," Keep in mind that even at that date the all-clear will not be given - things will open up slowly and be re-evaluated.. Here is an interesting perspective article from a American that has been living in Wuhan for 16 years and he says “Act as though it's going to be a lot longer from the beginning — financially pace yourself, physically try to set up a routine, keep some kind of schedule with exercise, with your children’s education and just prepare for it to be a lot longer.”

And to be fair to Cedar Fair, Disney's pass program is a different model. The Cedar Fair passes are good for the calendar year, whereas the Disney plan is good for a year from the date of purchase. Cedar Fair's system is set up for calendar year and probably cannot easily be modified to switch to a varied schedule plan like Disney. Plus as I have mentioned previously, Disney parks are one division of a media conglomerate, so Disney can "afford" to do this much easier than a Cedar Fair can as Cedar Fair doesn't have TV stations (other than FunTV lol) or movies for revenue streams...

Sometimes the press misunderstands... You can found articles where Steel Vengeance is called the tallest roller coaster in the world...leaving out the word hybrid makes that article inaccurate...and it would be wrong to cite that article and make the claim it is the tallest coaster in the world... Almost every new ride you can find an article that is wrong...you can find articles where Orion is called the longest coaster at KI...leaving out the word steel makes that article inaccurate....it happens... especially if the reporter knows nothing about rides... I personally have been misquoted in the media...it happens...anyone that deals with the media has probably been misquoted or what they said was misunderstood..it happens... Maybe that was the marketing spin KI put on it at the time as it was a complete refurb...or maybe the beat reporter didn't know anything about KI or didn't like the assignment or didn't care about getting the facts right or simply misunderstood...or maybe the reporter's first time to KI was in 1981 and the monster was gone for refurb and when the reporter returned in 1982 Monster returned but their experiences led them to believe it was a new ride...how many times have we seen someone report here a new item or something they saw at KI and someone shows an older picture that it was there long before then...Heck, go over to page 218 of the Orion construction thread and someone pointed out a new building by Viking Fury that has actually been a Churro stand for several years... Do you know how easy it is to make a statement like "This is our new ride this year. We took it completely apart and did a complete refurbishment on it and reinstalled it" and someone simply runs an article with just the first part "new ride"....it happens... Some historical information we have to go by the written record, inaccuracies and all, because nobody is living that experienced it. Sometimes we can talk to the people that were there at the time and has the records is better than what the media reported in some backpage space filler...at the end of the day it is a marketing story for the park and is just a ride and not emergency level information needing to be conveyed to the masses...

And for all my reasons stated back on page 37 and supplemented on page 40, I feel that they will not open if all they can provide is 2 months for essentially season pass holders...I hope I am wrong, but the data just isn't trending that way. Why do you believe they will open other than a gut feel? Singapore is a totally different situation, but even they were not immune to it. You can find dozens of articles like this that outlines the steps they took and the proactive approach they took. Why didn't others follow their textbook? They also have no real privacy laws either so they can do a lot more than we can. Look at my compare and contrast on page 28 to see the differences between there and here. Now my example was China, but if you research you will see Singapore did the same things and even more...Maybe Universal Singapore never has to close or maybe it will if they get the big second spike...but in any data analysis there is always an outlier and one park being open compared to all the rest is the wrong data point to focus on, unless the focus is to why could they stay open while others closed... Here are interesting statistics as of this afternoon: USA makes up about 4.25% of the world’s population; 24% of the total known Coronavirus cases and leading all countries Italy makes up 0.8% of the world’s population; 12% of the known cases China makes up 18.5% of the world’s population; 8% of the known cases India makes up 17.7% of the world’s population; 0.2% of the known cases Hong Kong makes up 0.1% of the world’s population; 0.08% of known cases Singapore makes up 0.08% of the world’s population; 1.0% of known cases Japan makes up 1.6% of the world’s population; 0.2% of known cases Now go and compare/contrast the measures each country took…Why does the USA have more cases and is way out of whack compared to our population? Why is Italy 0.8% of the population but make up 12% of the total cases? Why is Hong Kong and Singapore about what you should expect (% of world population equals % with virus)? Why is Japan well under their world percentage? Why do some countries require masks and temperature taking to go anywhere and others don't? The questions are endless... Some of it could be countries varying access to testing. Some of it could be countries not accurately portraying their numbers. Some of it could be they reacted more quickly than others. Some of it could be some were able to implement and enforce their method of choice to contain it better than others. Some of it could be lack of protection measures available...Some of it could be their demographic is older and sicker than others....Some of the first countries that experienced this virus just started to loosen the restrictions and had a spike and went back to closing things down....Lot's of reasons and one can certainly spin it to meet their bias. But as long as we maintain the world leader in cases and eventually the leader in deaths, the longer it will take for our "normal" to come back...

It is a double-edge sword. Would I like my family's money refunded and we decide at a later date if we will purchase - absolutely. But we paid the money and CF has spent/allocated where that money is going and these businesses have bills to pay too. If all these venues started paying refunds, then these companies disappear...and if they disappear too fast, the creditors are in line long before pass holders are to get any money back... The hard fact and truth of the matter is when someone purchases a pass in one year for the following year (or a gift card or any advance payment), one is essentially purchasing it on good faith that the company will still be around when it is time to use such purchase, whether it be season passes or gift cards, or anything of value bought in advance. We are also assuming that we will be in good health and not dead in 6-9 months when the park will be open. There is always a risk to purchasing for something in advance. Usually a purchase like this is a safe bet...and unless CF never opens again, we will get our value just at a later date... The park sold passes in 2019 at a discount for the 2020 season. We as consumers either decide to take advantage of that offer and accept the risk or wait until the following year and pay whatever the going rate is at that time. Whenever something is paid for in advance, the risk always exists that something may happen to render that purchase useless. Whether it is an event like this, a company goes out of business, or someone is scammed by paying someone to build them a deck and then that person takes off and the money is never seen again and a deck isn't built... It's life...and sometimes life sucks...but for many years, we got a great deal out of purchasing the year before for the following year... If I added up the savings differential over the years we have had passes, the savings more than pays for what we paid for passes for 2020...I know that isn't money in my pocket now, but that savings did allow us to spend it on other things throughout the years. Many know I feel like this season will be wash....but I also feel like CF will do whatever they can to make it right. If they do not open this year, the passes will simply move to 2021, but I also believe they will develop many more opportunities in 2021 for pass holders to try to make up the best they can. If they are able to open this year, I am sure they will do everything they can to make up for things that were beyond their control. Does it pay my bills now, no, but it pays their bills so that they can offer a park to us when the time is right... One thing this will do, at least for the short term, is modify people's spending habits and not buy a pass until the following year...or pay for anything in advance. It will be interesting to see what CF does to try to overcome this new consumer spending habit... I know many people that never pay for anything in advance. My one friend would always tell me he took the $100 he was going to spend on a pass in August and invested it and the money made on that investment paid for the now $140 pass in April....

So sorry to hear that...I think in general, society is still in a denial phase over this whole situation...or maybe in shock...or maybe simply enjoying the slow down of life.. I think a lot of companies tried to weather the storm in March and hope it would pass, and now that it is becoming clear to most that this is not going to end anytime soon, companies make these difficult decisions...and as good people like you start to get hit with being laid off or furloughed (and for purposes of this situation there is a difference in what each term means...), this stuff will start to get real to a lot more people...

But according to many that post, the Coronavirus situation will be gone by hurricane season

And a company is looking at lobster blood and has patents for it's work with other viruses...according to the article lobsters have a blood-like substance in their bodies called hemolymph that contains hemocyanin, a protein that carries oxygen to the lobster’s cells. The hemocyanin has anti-viral and immune-boosting properties, and already is being used in the development of cancer vaccines and treatments... https://bangordailynews.com/2020/04/01/news/bangor/maine-scientist-lobster-bloods-anti-viral-properties-could-help-with-covid-19/

According to the press conference yesterday, they have no idea when our summer will return to normal, but it is not expected to be anytime soon. https://www.wlwt.com/article/ohios-top-doctor-i-wish-i-could-give-you-hope-about-your-summer/32009489 We can expect to hear more restrictions in today's press conference... And you mention how drastically things have changed in the last few weeks - true - and every time something changes, it is more restrictive. Menard's just announced today no children under 16 in their stores. Zip-Dip, a local west-side ice cream shop with no indoor facilities except for the employees, opened and could remain open under the Orders and announced earlier this week they were re-closing out of abundance of safety. We still have a lot more restricting to do before they start to loosen... The day will come when the restrictions can be loosened, but we are nowhere near that yet and once they do, it will be slowly - open up a sector and evaluate and either shut back down to another spike or proceed with opening another sector. For example, I would not be surprised at all if K-12 starts next school year as remote learning. Universities have already gone to remote learning for summer semester and most have contingency planned for doing it in the fall as well. Anyone watching and paying attention to the news about this virus since it broke in January in China and watched what restrictive measures they were doing knew that some form of social distancing would occur once it hit here - albeit not as restrictive here as other countries. And watch what is happening there now that they have loosened up, another outbreak, so they close back down...not paying attention to history is living in a bubble, even if that history is recent, it is still a precedent being set...now of course lots of things could happen to change this course - an existing drug on the market turns out to be a cure and it is in plentiful supply would be a game changer...and hopefully a vaccine is found and readily available, but estimates are we are 18 months away from that...short of that, this will follow a somewhat known trajectory and course... I have outlined the compare and contrast of other countries back on page 28 for those that are interested in seeing the differences. My post on page 37 details in a long format that most haven't read LOL why I believe the season will be a wash...and as I pointed out in that post, look at the anticipated death total now expected in the US and where were are now and do an interpolation - we are months away...and none of these account for the second wave that is certain to happen. I understand people wanting optimism and I like to be optimistic as well, but sometimes we need to manage our expectations. Optimism is what has hurt countries in failing to take and address the seriousness of this pandemic in a timely fashion. This is our new normal for awhile. Amusement parks take a back seat to the more pressing issues and will probably be one of the last sectors re-opened...people need to get back to work and catch up on bills, etc. Amusement parks and movies and other leisure activities will take a long time to recover...Heck, some may be of the mindset "I was forced to live without it and managed just fine" and simply quit an activity they previously enjoyed and save their money for other things...when we get back to "normal", people may not eat out as much anymore or go to the movies or play golf or travel to amusement parks or whatever it is they previously did... You mentioned August...here was one of my shorter posts LOL outlining what I think would happen IF they could open in August...

Cedar Point is not going to re-open to people this year...check out the link

Notice the guy with his phone out at top of hill LOL...

Under this format, here is how it would likely play out: 2020 passes valid until end of June 2021 Most people will sit out month of July and wait for the 2022 passes to go on sale mid-August with the "buy for next year and get the rest of this year free" promotion because why buy a partial pass for the remaining 6 months when a month later they will give away 5 months free... Conclusion: from July 1, 2021 until 2022 passes go on sale will be lightly attended as everyone waits for the promotion... Now Cedar Fair with all its properties is a lot different than a single park like Kennywood. What about Michigan's Adventure with no Haunt or Winterfest - you can get this cycle way out of whack and/or have a period of time that is normally busy be empty because of people waiting to get back on a yearly cycle...most will skip between when the pass expires and the new one goes on sale and gamble that they will offer the 'buy for next year and get in this year free" promotion.... What about the Schlitterbahn water parks... The proposals LegoLand New York and Kennywood offered are a lot simpler to develop and administer than what Cedar Fair would have to deal with in the event they go this route. I still think they have a date in mind that if they cannot open by said date, they will simply scrap the season and make 2020 passes good in 2021. With as many parks as they own all on different calendars, etc., that might be the simplest way to minimize all the various scenarios and outcomes and complaints and keep the complainers down to the smallest level (recognizing they will get complaints regardless of what they do)... Or they go the SIX membership route...

University of Cincinnati just announced summer semester (May 11 to August 8th) has now switched to remote learning...just a matter of time before K-12 goes to remote rest of school year in Ohio...and possibly into the start of next school year... Ohio State going remote for summer term as well..

I thought it was this link: In other park news, Kings Dominion still shows a mid-May opening despite Governor stay home orders thru June 10th...

I had mentioned earlier in the thread that it is very possible we could see movie/media companies make a bid at the regional parks currently taking a nosedive in an effort to help market their movies if they could get the parks at the right price...imagine if Paramount bought Cedar Fair...I am sure we can come up with some re-names Paramount Korea is under construction and currently slated to open in 2025, so it isn't like they are completely out of the picture or not interested in parks again...

Actually Corona sales are up after an initial decline... https://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/corona-beer-among-winners-coronavirus-sales-surge/2247211

They already did lol

Nice to see Ohio's approach getting recognition: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52113186

I haven't been on a KI giga...

In addition many posters, including myself, have posted content here in a "read between the lines" context... Speaking of "reading between the lines"... https://www.yahoo.com/news/cdc-considering-encouraging-people-cover-101158880.html

Get in the "make me whole" line ...oh wait, wrong park...

Next big town over is where Canada's Wonderland resides...so following the trend, they will follow as Toronto with a lag of about two weeks, pushing their banning of events until mid-July...looks like Wonderland will see their season washed too...

I referenced a study above that shows it stays airborne for 27 feet inside...so imagine the spread outside... We can hope for immunity, but in places now seeing a second wave, they are seeing it defying the laws of virology and people are getting reinfected. Nobody knows for sure yet if we will get communal immunity or not... https://www.france24.com/en/20200328-can-the-coronavirus-infect-someone-twice See my post earlier 3 hours ago above...